Peter's career experience makes him well placed to provide support to clients in areas such as:

Sustainable forest management certification

Forest carbon certification

Forestry-related public policy.

A summary of Peter's relevant career experience is shown below.

Experience in public policy development and forest certification

Peter has played a prominent role in representing the UK forestry sector's policy interests and in the development of certification in UK forestry since 1988.

He is a former CEO of the Timber Growers Association and the Forest Industries Development Council and he worked at a UK, European and international level to represent the sector's interests.

He played a key role in raising the political and economic profile of the UK forestry sector through his work as an independent member of governmental drafting groups to develop the industry-positive Scottish and Welsh national forestry strategies for the newly devolved administrations. He then worked to strengthen sector competitiveness by working with Scottish Enterprise to develop a Scottish Forest Industries Cluster and then initiating the development of equivalent partnerships in England and Wales so providing structures for developing a much-improved governmental focus on business sector priorities. Peter also played a leading role in the Timber Transport Forum and successfully promoting the concept of a Scottish Strategic Timber Transport Fund.

Peter was a member of the Forestry Commission's Advisory Panel from 1992 to 2006 and was the independent member of numerous government review groups ranging from grant reviews to the 'prior options' and subsequent reviews of the Forest Research agency; he was the business representative on the Scottish Executive's working group reviewing the management of national forests in 2003.

He works effectively with business leaders, NGOs, public officials and elected representatives and is comfortable discussing issues with Ministers, senior officials and parliamentarians; he has been called before Parliamentary Select Committees and also facilitated the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Forestry at Westminster and the establishment of a Cross Party Group in the Scottish Parliament.

Peter represented the UK on the Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF) and the EU's Forestry & Cork Advisory Committee. He was also prominent in the International Forestry Industries Roundtable, an international forest industry forum on sustainable forestry, and a member of the official UK Delegation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 where he spoke for the business sector at the launch of the business/NGO/government UK Forest Partnership for Action.

Perhaps Peter's most enduring legacy comes from his prominent leadership role in repositioning the UK forest industries sector from being a source of environmental controversy to an international exemplar of good practice. This was achieved through strengthening its sustainability profile and building credible solutions to practical problems involving the full range of stakeholders. At TGA, Peter led the business sector in highly charged and controversial negotiations with NGOs and government and was instrumental in building the consensus necessary to agree an independent UK Woodland Assurance Standard (UKWAS). At FIDC, he was responsible for facilitating the development of a UK forest industries sector sustainability strategy.

Since 2004, he has chaired the UKWAS partnership which, uniquely, sets the certification standard used for both FSC and PEFC certification in the UK; globally no other standard is used by more than one certification programme. Most recently he facilitated the development of a third edition of the UKWAS standard which was launched in December 2011.

Peter is a member of a four-person Technical Panel appointed by the Central Point of Expertise on Timber Procurement (CPET) to assess international timber certification schemes for legality and sustainability to inform the UK Government's Timber Procurement Policy.

He has prepared several reports to inform the development of the Forestry Commission's Woodland Carbon Code launched in 2011 and is a member of the FC's Carbon Advisory Group.